Quote Originally Posted by Silverbackman
Yea, that is true. Japan really did do a lot of modernizing in Taiwan but I don't think it would have been as great as it would be if it wasn't capitalist.
Another country with a similar situation but more balanced governments was Korea. South Korea is a pretty powerful nation and one of Asia's only developed countries (besides Japan and possibly Taiwan). North Korea on the other hand, well things couldn't be worse!
Mao's "Great Leap Forward" policy did far worse than anything a Nationalist party of any country would do. The Nationalists weren't the greatest either but many
Nationalists had plans to establish a republic obviously. And there were no planned purges under the Nationalists Party either.
How much do you all think the culture of Chinese would have been if the Nationalists Party took over? I pretty sure it would have been more preserved.
Taiwan and Korea may be categorized as "developed country" on paper but their people quality is far from what a developed country should be. I think the only true developed country in Asia is Japan.

If Nationalists were in control of China, there probably won't be any major impact on Chinese culture. Don't get me wrong, there are many extremely talented individuals in the Nationalist party that had great vision for China's future. However, the Nationalist during that time was a body decomposing from the inside. CCP had more vision and care for building a new China, not just to get Chinese rich but they had in mind a China with new culture and identity. The only problem is that CCP's vision of China was too ideal if not impossible to reach. Of course, their attempt to build a new China failed miserably.

Today's CCP is just like the Nationalists in the early 1900s. They are both corrupted and have no real vision to lead the country and its people. The only difference between the China before and the China now is that some of it's people have more money in their pocket.